Red & Green
Artists at new Lauryn Taylor Fine Art exhibit play with seasonal color
By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON - Herald Correspondent
Life is a kaleidoscope of hues, coloring our
perspectives and experiences, infusing our rituals and traditions with shades of
significance, starting perhaps, with the shifting seasons.
Winter is washed white, while spring is a
palette of pastels and succulent greens. Summer is golden and autumn warms the
landscape with rich tones of rust, ochre and brown.
The Fourth of July is red, white and blue.
Halloween is orange and black, and Thanksgiving is an autumn harvest of color.
Christmas is, traditionally, red and green.
Not just any red or green but evergreen and bright Christmas red.
Unless you are artist Lauryn Taylor. The maven
of inventive art exhibits, who constantly invites artists to reach beyond their
creative comfort to come up with art that responds to her vision, is introducing
"Red Light, Green Light," her holiday exhibition, opening this weekend at her
fine art gallery in Carmel.
"Inspired by the popular children's game, 'Red
Light, Green Light' is a playful, festive exhibit," said Taylor, "that focuses
on balancing the dynamic and subtle harmonies of the complementary colors, red
and green."
To manifest her exhibit, Taylor invited each
of 10 artists to create a pair of paintings or sculptures, one in the
predominantly cooler green colors and the other, in the primarily warmer red
tones.
In her mind's eye, the two pieces should
relate to each other as a pair yet also be able to stand alone as individual
works of art.
It was up to the artist to decide and express
how.
"Size and subject matter," said Taylor, "were
completely open to interpretation. I reminded the artists that, although we were
creating a festive holiday exhibit through the use of color, the subject of
their work did not need to be holiday related. Their main purpose was to have
fun and think outside the box."
Southern California artist Susan Thacker took
the title literally and stayed "inside the box."
Yet, once you see how she manifested the
children's game on canvas, you'll realize she thinks way off the playground. Or
maybe above it.
As an artist, Thacker has long been interested
in the concept of crowds of people, painting both the individuals and the
collective identity of people en masse.
And then one day, her perspective shifted
upward, overhead, above yet looking down upon the crowd from a vantage rarely
experienced.
"Whether it's the Pope's funeral or people
running in a marathon," she said, "my eye seems to be directed to the design of
crowds from above. I walk a line between it being from afar and yet close enough
that the viewer engages in it. Hopefully, if you look at it long enough, you'll
see those circles as heads belonging to people carrying something or with feet,
going somewhere. My paintings are the combination of a little abstract and a
little figurative in hopes that the viewer, himself, brings something to the
design."
"Red Light, Green Light," characterized by a
cluster of children running forward every time the child chosen as semaphore
calls out "Green Light" and halting with every "Red Light," was a natural for
Thacker's painting style.
"When Lauryn told me the concept of the show,"
she said, "obviously the colors told me it had some relation to Christmas which,
in my mind, is children. I saw such immediacy in children playing a game where
'Green Light' means to go, and 'Red Light' means to stop. I had to do it."
Thacker is deeply engaged by the perspective
of children. Until recently, she taught a special art program for children at
Otis College, one of the top art schools in the country.
Called, "Mini Masters Studio," the Saturday
program let children take ownership of their art in a place they knew was
somewhere special.
"Susan is a wonderful artist and very special
teacher," said artist Erin Gafill, who also is participating in the exhibit.
"When she starts off her kids in class, she puts out paper, and they sprawl
around on the floor and draw. Then, she takes their drawings to her own studio
to expand on their childlike impulses and embellish their creativity."
Gafill, who also teaches art to children
through the Big Sur Arts Initiative she founded in 1997, is usually directed in
her own work by what she's feeling.
The challenge and the fun in preparing for
"Red Light, Green Light," is that her work, if only initially, was directed by
someone else.
"It has been really fun to go off on an
assignment," she said, "to create something for Lauryn that worked along those
lines. I also appreciate the synergistic idea of all of us out there, wherever
we are, trying to attack this problem in our own ways."
Gafill approached the project through a series
of paintings that evolved from figure drawings.
"What struck me," she said, "was the life
force of the body, which has a meaning that transcends the subject. I realized
if I could tap into that energy, my paintings would succeed and, if not, they
would not have life. It was so exciting, I didn't want to stop. After maybe 20
paintings, I saw the two whose color fields and pairing accommodate 'Red Light,
Green Light'."
Unlike Gafill's experience, the assignment
fell in synch with the way her son, Chai Birmingham, tends to paint.
Often starting with a sense of color, he likes
to build upon some kind of story or emotional response to the subject, and
develop it into a landscape.
"Generally, in my landscape work," said
Birmingham, who is participating in the exhibit,"I try to emphasize a personal
reaction to the subject matter rather than what the subject is. For this
assignment, I looked at how the story of two landscapes would be changed by this
introduction of color."
As the basic shapes of his landscapes started
to take form, one depicting the steep hills and valleys of Big Sur, and the
other, an earthy, Arizona mood, he recognized a destination sensibility in them
and began working on a transportation theme that would unify the two paintings.
He started laying in roadways and thinking
about trains. He wondered about buildings and other landscape features that
would be most logical to the composition. When it comes right down to it, we're
just going to have to wait and see.
"The artists have responded to this fun
challenge with a diverse group of work," said Taylor, "and with a wide range of
color choices within the red/green palette of colors. The result is an
intriguing exhibit, where each pair of artworks presents the viewer with a
dynamic equilibrium of warmth juxtaposed against cool."
ART OPENING • What: "Red Light, Green Light"
art exhibition • Where: Lauryn Taylor Fine Art, San Carlos between Ocean and 7th
avenues, Carmel • When: Opening reception and holiday open house 6 to 9 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 10; exhibit will run through Jan. 2 • Tickets: Free and open to
the public • Information: 624-1161 or visit www.lauryntaylor.com
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